For months in early 2024, conservatives like myself tried to sound the alarm on President Joe Biden’s declining physical and mental health. It was obvious that he was unwell.
Yet, Democrats and much of the legacy news media ignored that reality and even attacked those of us who were willing to speak the truth. They claimed we were fabricating tales and spreading baseless conspiracy theories.
Now, the narrative has changed dramatically. Journalists are publishing books and news articles detailing not only Biden’s poor health but also an orchestrated cover-up inside the White House. According to one of the books, even one of Biden’s closest former aides now admits that the commander in chief was “out of it” last year as he attempted to run for reelection.
This is one of the biggest scandals of my adult life. Now we know that Biden’s inner circle deliberately misled the American people in an election year about the incumbent president’s ability to serve a second term.
We also know that journalists were far too passive, at best, in reporting revelations that Americans needed to know before the election.
Opinion: Republicans don’t need Trump to run again. Vance is ready to take the lead.
‘Biden might die in office’
Politico reported last week that at least four books will be published in the next few weeks that provide new details about Biden’s failing health and the conspiracy to cover it up.
One of those books, “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” by NBC News’ Jonathan Allen and The Hill’s Amie Parnes, includes incredible details about Biden’s poor health while he was still in office.
The authors report that Democratic leaders were worried that Biden could not win another election and had “hush-hush talks” discussing his potential withdrawal from the race as early as 2023.
Biden did withdraw, but not until July 2024, after his disastrous debate against Donald Trump.
The most damning part of “Fight” is the revelation that Vice President Kamala Harris’ aides were so concerned about the president’s health that they “strategized around the possibility that Biden might die in office.” The authors report that Jamal Simmons, the vice president’s communications director, drew up a “death-pool roster” of federal judges who could swear in Harris as president if Biden died.
Biden aides ‘believed what they wanted to believe’
In “Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History,” author Chris Whipple details Biden’s serious mental and physical decline.
“I have fresh reporting on an hour-by-hour, day-by-day basis of Biden’s final days, and obviously his decline is a major part of the story,” Whipple told Politico.
After extensive reporting, Whipple, a former “60 Minutes” producer, came to the conclusion that Democrats were in deep denial about Biden’s condition: “I happen to think that to call it a ‘cover-up’ is simplistic. I think it was stranger and way more troubling than that. Biden’s inner circle, his closest advisers, many of them were in a fog of delusion and denial. They believed what they wanted to believe.”
President Joe Biden delivers his farewell address to the nation from the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 15, 2025.
Ron Klain, a longtime aide to Biden and his former White House chief of staff, helped the president prepare for his fateful debate with Trump last year. Klain told Whipple that Biden “didn’t know what Trump had been saying and couldn’t grasp what the back and forth was.”
Klain also described how Biden “didn’t really understand what his argument was on inflation” and “had nothing to say about a second term other than finish the job.”
Opinion: I’m tired of being mocked and hated because I’m a conservative woman
Americans deserved better
Biden didn’t just run for reelection, quit and pass the torch to Harris. He was the sitting president, who was in serious decline and was surrounded by people who knew it but stayed silent.
A Washington Post review of “Fight” notes, “So much fresh material, so many bruised egos, so many scores to settle. … Every one of them saw the wreck coming, of course, in the instant the train lurched out of the station, but no one would listen. Now, at long last, they can tell it all.”
Opinion newsletter: Sign up for our newsletter on conservative values, family and religion from columnist Nicole Russell. Get it delivered to your inbox.
But Americans deserved to be told the truth at least a year ago, not months after the 2024 election. The fact that they weren’t is a scandal not only for Democrats but much of the legacy media as well.
Democratic insiders knew that concerns about the president’s ability to continue serving were serious. Journalists who covered the president had ample evidence to suggest those concerns were valid.
Only now, a year too late, are they finally telling us the truth.
Nicole Russell is a columnist at USA TODAY and a mother of four who lives in Texas. Contact her at nrussell@gannett.com and follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @russell_nm. Sign up for her weekly newsletter, The Right Track, here.
You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New books reveal Biden’s failing health – a year too late | Opinion
